Sunday 4th March

We all make irrational decisions where money is concerned.  When buying a house; whether the price is 345 or 347 and a half thousand, are we really going to quibble.  When on holiday we buy yet another over-priced straw sun hat or a pair of expensive designer sunglasses at the airport – in fact once one has decided that one is actually ‘on holiday’ all everyday thriftiness evaporates like the mist on those Tuscan hills by mid-morning.  When we are out with friends and the mood takes us we will sometimes in a fit of generosity pick up the whole tab at that chic little Italian Trattoria where the prices would have made Grandma turn away and remark, “Well Catherine, we don’t really like foreign food anyway, do we?”  And yet when going round the supermarket we sometimes shake our heads in disbelief at how much a four-pack of loo-rolls costs, (two pounds, fifty – they have got to be joking), and frantically start looking along the shelf for the value brand.  We all spend money carelessly when the mood takes us, and yet profess to be careful to all our friends; the ever-rising price of everything being a constant source of conversation.  And every so often I open the spreadsheet I keep of my personal finances and look at the ever (slowly but surely) increasing numbers and sigh to myself.  Yes, it really is a decent enough sum, I could do anything with it, buy a house in the country, or more realistically in the Dordogne, give a large sum to a charity, or more cheaply, get the house re-decorated, the garden landscaped, maybe a conservatory.  But none of those would really make me happy. Maybe nothing will.  Money and the spending of it is only a temporary thrill, and then you look around you at your purchases, and yes, they look quite nice I suppose, but never quite as good as they did in the shop, and you know this feeling will not last.  And the next time you open the spreadsheet and see a diminished balance you will wonder at your impulsiveness in buying that new sofa, or upgrading the car again.  Neither the having money nor the spending of it makes one really happy, not half as happy anyway as when you discover that you can actually buy nine, yes nine loo-rolls in the ‘99p’ store and still have a penny change to put in the charity box.  Now that’s what I call irrational.